Aesthetics of popular cultures: rethinking the art/life link

The following essay aims to address the aesthetic dimension of popular cultures by rescuing, especially, their ability to link art/life. From my research with African-American cultural practices, I expose here a question about the stigmatization that weighs on these practices; especially, its discredit as aesthetic practices. This stigmatization has several edges, and is a consequence of multiple factors; my objective is to explore here the ignorance that one has of these practices as articulators of an ethics and a pragmatic aesthetic. Considering the manner in which, through highly performative aesthetic practices, they convey social relationships, values, commitments to the environment and to others (human and non-human). In this sense, it is the particular link - so discussed and worked by the artistic vanguards of Europe and America - between art / life, what these popular practices elaborate with effort and efficacy. Perhaps because of the disparity in terms of the recognition that both experiences (those of "autonomous" art and those of popular cultures) have had, is that I test some hypotheses that can guide future research on the causes of this difference.